It is said that fate was with Bill Doolin this day he was riding with the Daltons on the dusty road to Coffeyville. Not far from the town Doolin's horse pulled up lame and Bill was forced to turn back, thus escaping the rifles and six-shooters of the outraged citizens, who shot the Daltons out of their saddles.Legend aside, it was always known that Bill Doolin had a large amount of common sense, and this rather than a horse's lame leg probably accounted for his turning back on the Coffeyville road. Doolin was no coward but also he was no fool and the fantastic scheme of Grat and Emmett Dalton to steal the doubtful glory that belonged to the Jameses and Youngers by robbing two banks at once didn't set right with Doolin.When he heard that news of how the Daltons went out, Doolin saddled up and rode back to Oklahoma to form what was one of the last of the organized outlaw bunch in the West. The Daltons rode for only eighteen months, but Doolin managed to rob and run for four long years.

Bill Tilghman captured Doolin at Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where the outlaw was enjoying the springs. Tilghman went in alone and took Doolin in a bath after a fierce struggle. It is no legend that when he was packing Doolin's things he found a small silver cup. "That's for my baby boy, Bill," Doolin said with the strange familiarity that existed between many of the old-time outlaws and marshals.I'll see that he gets it, Bill, Tilghman said, and put the cup in the valise.At Gutherie, five thousand people crowded about the station fighting for a chance to see the pair. As crowds will do, they ignored the brave lawman for the thief. They cheered Doolin more than his captor.Doolin pleaded not guilty and was held over for trial at the Guthrie federal jail. He escaped, freeing thirty-seven other prisoners.Forty years later it was learned that Doolin hid out at the New Mexican ranch of Eugene Manlove Rhodes, where he saved his famous host from being killed by a mad horse. He returned to his wife and baby boy only to be killed by Heck Thomas outside of Lawson, as he walked down a road in the moonlight leading his horse and cradling a Winchester in one arm behind came a wagon, driven by his wife.The shotgun blast killed Doolin instantly. The body was put across a horse and Heck Thomas led the horse and the dead man back to Lawson, followed by the outlaw's weeping widow. There is one last ironic touch; on the back of the wagon was a chicken coop and a plow, mute symbols of the life Doolin, the outlaw, had scorned so often, but had at last tried to embrace.